Articles Posted in Securities

Facebook faces a lawsuit by new shareholders in the social networking company, filed less than a week after its IPO.

The shareholders allege that Facebook misled them by filing untrue statements in legal filings with the S.E.C., failed to prevent such statements from being misleading, and did not properly prepare the documents for prospective shareholders.

While another shareholder sued NASDAQ yesterday over the exchange’s acknowledged trading glitches, but this lawsuit specifically targets Facebook, board members, and investment banks.

A class action lawsuit was filed yesterday against NASDAQ by an individual investor accusing the stock exchange of botching his Facebook stock (FB) orders on the day of the IPO.

Plaintiff Phillip Goldberg alleges that he “placed purchase and cancellation orders for Facebook’s stock that NASDAQ failed to promptly and accurately execute” last Friday, May 18, 2012, causing he and scores of other investors to suffer losses on their trades (view the lawsuit below).

Facebook filed its Amended S-1 Registration Statement (read it below) with the SEC today, a little more than two weeks before the social media company’s IPO.

The company, whose NASDAQ ticker symbol will be ‘FB’ estimates “the initial public offering price will be between $28.00 and $35.00 per share.” That would put Facebook’s corporate valuation at approximately $100 billion.

Doug Whitman, the head portfolio manager at Whitman Capital, LLC, was indicted by a New York federal grand jury on insider trading and criminal securities fraud charges (read the indictment below).

The indictment alleges that in 2006 and 2007, Whitman’s firm made $900,000 in illegal profits by trading Google and Polycom stocks using material, non-public information that Whitman himself acquired to make the trades.

Whitman is also charged with buying and selling Marvell Technology Group stock and options over roughly two years using insider information.

Facebook is readying its initial public offering (IPO) by preparing an S-1 registration statement for filing with the S.E.C. next week, and is said to be anticipating a $75 – $100 billion valuation for the social networking giant.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, unnamed sources maintain that Morgan Stanely is likely to be chosen as the lead underwriter for the public offering, beating out Goldman Sachs and others.

Illinois law dean and professor Vikram David Amar comments on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt and what it says about stare decisis, the notion that prior Court rulings are entitled to respect in the Court today.